What if?
by Veela-Valoom
Summary: Please Read and review. Harry Potter is a young man whose troubles seem only to be mounting. After that night in the DoM the only thing Harry can do is ask one single burning question, a question that won't give peace and question that will only leave h


"What if?" Seemed to be the most important and troubling question. It is a question person could wrestle with for a century and never get any closer to answering. It is often a question with out any real concrete answer because no body can look into the future and understand the consequence of every choice they're going to make. It's impossible for any human being, besides maybe a true seer, to look into the future and see how one bad choice could effect every day, every moment for the rest of their life. Asking what if could drive a man insane. He could be consumed with guilt and sorrow and still never come any closer to fixing the mistake. Hindsight is 20/20, only it has no future and leaves no options. So in essence, hindsight is worthless. One can not truly learn from their mistakes, because the mistake has already been made and can't be fixed. One can not go back and correct the past in effort to mend the future. Asking what if can only lead to guilt, sadness and bitterness. "What if" was exactly what young Harry Potter was struggling with. Summer had come, and it was seemingly normal. He'd returned to Pivet Drive, to life with the Dursley's, or had he? In his heart Harry knew he was still stuck back in the Department of Mysteries on that fateful night asking that burning question: what if? Every moment of his day was consumed by trying to figure out what he could have done differently. He'd already come up with hundreds of things he would change if he had the chance. From little things he wished he said, and little things he could have done, to huge catastrophic mistake he shouldn't have made. As he sat isolated in his room he felt a strange feeling come over him. It was mid-afternoon and he was wide awake, but he felt as though he were falling asleep where he sat. Suddenly he was unconscious and faced with a startling new question: What if you got a premonition a month too late?  
  
Suddenly Harry was watching a meeting among death eaters, not from within Voldemort this time, but from somewhere in ceiling above. He was consciously relieved not to be inside of Voldmort, that meant his mind wasn't being invaded. But if he wasn't inside Voldemort what was this. For some reason a voice in the back of Harry's mind told him it was premonition but Harry could tell there was something off about the meeting he was watching. Then Harry realized what it was, they were talking about Sirius as though he were still alive.  
"And you're sure this will lure him," hissed Lord Voldemort. They were plotting, but who were they plotting against.  
  
"Of course it will," said a voice Harry recognized as belonging to Peter Pettigrew, "He loves Sirius more than anyone in the world." If Harry could've moved he would have pounced on Pettigrew and killed him with his bare hands. How dare that rodent mention his, his...his...his late godfather. Harry wanted to cry right there, but he couldn't. He was stuck in limbo watching a premonition and not understanding why he was seeing it now.  
  
"Then that settles it Wormtail. I will push my way into the weakling's mind and convince him that I have his precious godfather. Then, like the little hero he thinks he is, he'll rush off to save him. Prepare my death eaters Wormtail. I want them to be ready to ambush him as soon as he arrives. Oh, and make sure they know not to destroy the prophesy." Why are they talking about the prophesy? Harry asked himself, I've already destroyed it. Then it hit Harry as hard as anything had ever hit him. Grief overcame him as he realized, this meeting had already happened. When he had been at Hogwart's, before Sirius's....death. There were times when he still had trouble speaking the word. His hopes and dreams of having a family and a home had been shattered in the blink of an eye. He had made too many mistakes, and they had cost him the closest thing he had ever had to a father.  
  
Harry's eyes fluttered open for a second and he realized he was still in number four Pivet Drive and he was crying. He blamed himself, it had been all his fault. Somehow, by some sadistic twist of fate he had missed the premonition that warned him of Voldemort's plan, and a month later was suffering through watching it as though it could still make a difference. What would have happened if I had seen the premonition? Harry asked himself. Sirius would be alive, his mind whispered. Thinking about Sirius and Harry's stupid mistakes were too much for the young man. In a moment of pure uninhibited rage Harry punched the wall with all his strength leaving a deep fist shape indention in the dry wall and a throbbing pain in his hand. What if....What if....there were too many what ifs and Harry couldn't do anything about it now. Barely noticing that his fist was throbbing with pain Harry started to sob. For so long he had tried to be brave, he had tried to be the hero, but now he knew he had just been stupid. It was his stupid blunders, his hero complex, that had killed Sirius. No matter what Harry did he couldn't escape the "what ifs" and a voice deep inside told him that he probably never would. 


End file.
